Choline on the Brain? A Guide to Choline in Chronic Fatigue Syndromehttp://phoenixrising.me/research-2/the-brain-in-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-mecfs/choline-on-the-brain-a-guide-to-choline-in-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-by-cort-johnson-aug-2005
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Suppose two men go to the same doctor on the same day. Suppose the doctor runs some tests and several days later calls both of them back into his office (with their wives) and separately announces to each of them that they have Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. Both men are given between 9 and 15 months to live.

Let's call these two men Alan and Bill. Let us consider the responses of both of these men.

Alan's response: "Doctor, I had no idea I had cancer, what do you want me to do, I will do anything you ask!"

Bill's response: "Oh, good, I'm glad it is nothing serious. I will go home and take care of it myself."

What is the difference between these two men? The difference is knowledge.

One of the key purposes of this article is to convince people to study alternative cancer treatments before they are diagnosed with cancer. Why is this important? There are two reasons this is important.

First, you should know that natural medicine (i.e. alternative medicine) has a much higher cure rate for cancer than orthodox medicine. Much higher!! But even for those who do not survive, those on natural medicine almost always (except in rare cases) have a much longer life and always have a much higher quality of life while they are being treated!!

Second, you should know that if you want to get the most benefit from alternative medicine you need to do two things. You need to do your homework - lots of it - and you need to avoid the severe damage done by orthodox treatments to your body - especially to your immune system.

In other words, your best chance of survival is to study natural medicine for yourself, and totally avoid the orthodox treatments of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

Please take an hour of your time to read this article about some of the evidence for alternative cancer treatments. Then you can decide for yourself whether my advice is good.If you are married, there is a greater than 60% probability that either you or your spouse (or both) is going to be diagnosed with cancer in your lifetimes! That percentage keeps going up!

Perhaps, whether you have cancer or not, you wanted to know the truth about whether alternative cancer treatments or orthodox cancer treatments were more effective, safer, less painful, etc. If you understood the process of finding the truth, you would go through the four steps of the "truth table."
1) Learn the good things about orthodox cancer treatments, from the orthodox medicine supporters.
2) Learn the bad things about alternative cancer treatments, from the orthodox medicine supporters.
and you would (this line represents the symbolic "fence" between orthodox medicine and alternative medicine):3) Learn the good things about alternative cancer treatments, from the alternative medicine supporters.4) Learn the bad things about orthodox cancer treatments, from the alternative medicine supporters.

On one side of the "fence" are the people who represent orthodox medicine, who will gladly tell you the good things about orthodox medicine and the bad things about alternative medicine. On the other side of the fence are the alternative medicine representatives.
If you were an expert on what the people on both sides of the fence were saying (i.e. you were an expert in all four items in the truth table), then you would be in a position to make an intelligent decision about which side has the best treatments.
The problem is that when people have heard the good things about orthodox medicine, from the orthodox medicine supporters, and they have heard the bad things about alternative medicine, from the orthodox medicine supporters,they think they are experts on both subjects!!But they are not experts in either subject because they have not heard a word from the alternative medicine supporters!!!
While this sounds like a simple concept, it is virtually impossible for the average person to comprehend. Why should they listen to people they have been told all their life not to listen to? I am going to repeat that last paragraph:
The problem is that when people have heard the good things about orthodox medicine, from the orthodox medicine supporters, and they have heard the bad things about alternative medicine, from the orthodox medicine supporters,they think they are experts on both subjects!!But they are not experts in either subject because they have not heard a word from the alternative medicine supporters!!!
Here is the eternal truth: If orthodox medicine supporters (e.g. the American Cancer Society) will lie to you about how good orthodox cancer treatments are, then the orthodox medicine supporters (e.g. quackwatch) will also lie to you about how bad alternative cancer treatments are!!! That is why you don't know the truth about either orthodox cancer treatments or alternative cancer treatments!!
Thousands of times you have heard how wonderful orthodox doctors are via: shows such as M*A*S*H, Marcus Welby, MD, other doctor and hospital TV shows, news programs, magazines, advertisements, etc. These things naturally transfer to you believing that orthodox cancer treatments must also be wonderful (i.e. truth table #1). And you have no doubt heard dozens of bad things about alternative cancer treatments (truth table #2). Notice from the above table that both of these items come from orthodox medicine supporters. In other words, you have heard all of these things from the same side of the fence.
You have probably never heard anything bad about orthodox cancer treatments (truth table #4), and in all likelihood you have never heard anything good about alternative cancer treatments (truth table #3). Why haven't you heard very much, if anything, from alternative medicine supporters?

When you have only heard from the people on one side of the fence for your entire life, you should wonder why!

"An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious - just dead wrong."
Russell Wayne Baker (1947 - ) American Journalist

Is what you hear in the media based on who has the most truth or is it based on who has the most money?
To demonstrate just how one-sided your information has been, answer these two questions. First, when was the last time you saw a dramatic show on a major television network where the hero was an alternative medicine practitioner who was making alternative cancer treatments look safe and effective? Second, name 10 of the most effective alternative cancer treatments?
What you are about to read will contradict everything you have heard in your life. Your natural reaction at times will be disbelief. But if you are willing to spend the next hour reading this article (i.e. about truth table #3 and truth table #4), it could very well lead to a journey that will save your life or the life of a loved one!
This is a public service website, so I have no financial interest in your decision. However, after studying all four parts of the above truth table for hundreds of hours, I am certain it will be in your best interests to continue reading.
Before going on, let us first clarify a key point. Some readers probably think that this article is about comparing:
1) Orthodox treatments, enhanced or complemented with alternative treatments (called "complementary medicine"), versus
2) Orthodox treatments without alternative treatments.
While this would be an interesting topic, it has nothing to do with this article.
This article is about comparing:
1) Orthodox treatments without alternative treatments, versus,
2) Alternative treatments without orthodox treatments. In other words, this article is about using alternative cancer treatments, meaning the use of natural substances, instead of orthodox treatments. Welcome to truth table #3 and truth table #4. You need to start thinking about natural substances as a complete, stand-alone treatment for cancer.

Question #1: Dr. Ewan Cameron, and two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, did studies in Scotland (which were duplicated by studies in Canada and Japan) comparing Vitamin C therapy to chemotherapy. Which group of patients, the ones on Vitamin C or chemotherapy, lived longer on average, and by how much?

Question #2: An American alternative cancer treatment doctor treated 33,000 cancer patients, most of whom had been given up for dead by orthodox medicine and had been sent home to die. What was his verified cure rate?

Question #3: Fill in the blank: "In a review of 206 human studies, [which food] consistently emerged as one of the top cancer-fighting foods."

Question #4: How many Nobel Prize discoveries (and when were they awarded) did Dr. Johanna Budwig use to help her develop the Flaxseed Oil (omega 3) / Cottage Cheese (sulphur proteins) cancer treatment?

Question #5: It is absurd to think that a person can be cured of cancer simply by changing their diet. Only professionals can cure cancer. True or false?

Let's answer these questions.

Question #1: Dr. Ewan Cameron, and two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, did studies in Scotland (which were duplicated by studies in Canada and Japan) comparing Vitamin C therapy to chemotherapy. Which group of patients, the ones on Vitamin C or chemotherapy, lived longer on average, and by how much?

Answer: The Vitamin C patients lived an average of six times longer than the chemotherapy patients. I don't know why anyone would be surprised at this result. Cancer in many cases is nothing but a symptom of a weakened immunity system. Chemotherapy virtually destroys an already weakened immunity system, and it is the immunity system that deals with cancer on a normal basis. On the other hand, Vitamin C helps build the immunity system. It makes sense that someone who has had their immunity system built up would outlive someone who had their immunity system destroyed.

Because Dr. Pauling was world famous, and had an impeccable reputation for quality and integrity, a person might wonder why the orthodox medical community did not do further studies on Vitamin C and cancer. They did do further studies on Vitamin C. But the purpose of these studies was not what you would expect. I will say more about this later in this article.

Question #2: An American alternative cancer treatment doctor treated 33,000 cancer patients, most of whom had been given up for dead by orthodox medicine and had been sent home to die. What was his verified cure rate?

Answer: Dr. William Donald Kelley, a dentist by training, had a 93% cure rate. This cure rate was verified by a 5-year study by an orthodox doctor. His technique is called "metabolic" therapy, and guess what, it was designed to build the immunity system.

But what is of even more significance is the answer to this question: "if we factor out all of his patients who went to orthodox doctors before they went to Dr. Kelley, and only counted those who went to Dr. Kelley first, what would his cure rate have been?"

If we assume that his cure rate for patients who went to him first was as high as his cure rate for those of his patients who went to orthodox medicine first, the answer would be that his cure rate would be at least 93%, probably higher!

This is a logical conclusion for three reasons:

First, he used the identical treatment regardless of whether his patient went to him first or orthodox medicine first,

Second, for those patients who went to orthodox medicine first, Dr. Kelley lost a lot of time before he was able to start treating these patients. In other words, he started their treatment after they were further along with their cancer, and

Third, those patients who went to orthodox medicine first had their immunity systems severely compromised before they went to Dr. Kelley, thus Dr. Kelley had to rebuild that portion of their immunity system.

In other words, it is obvsious that if 10,000 new cancer patients, who had not had any orthodox treatments, went to Dr. Kelley first, his overall cure rate for these people would be at least 93%, probably higher! That is far, far higher than the patients who go to orthodox medicine first.

His reward by orthodox medicine for his high cure rate was to be thrown in jail. Kelley also had to move his treatment to Mexico. Fortunately, he has written a book about his treatment: Cancer, Curing The Incurable Without Surgery, Chemotherapy or Radiation and he currently has a web site.

Because Dr. Kelley had such an incredibly high cure rate for cancer, much, much higher than orthodox medicine, you might wonder why the orthodox medical community does not study Dr. Kelley's treatment to see if there are ways to improve it. In other words, why doesn't the orthodox community use Dr. Kelley's treatment in order to obtain a quick and immediate 93% or higher cure rate for new cancer patients, then find ways to improve on it to get even higher cure rates?

Question #3: Fill in the blank: "In a review of 206 human studies, [which food] consistently emerged as one of the top cancer-fighting foods."

Answer: Here is the complete quote: "In a review of 206 human studies, carrots consistently emerged as one of the top cancer-fighting foods. The power of carrots lies in the group of pigments called carotenoids (beta-carotene is among this group), which give them their orange color."

While it is nice that scientists have made this discovery, carrots were used to cure cancer long before any of the 206 human studies the quote refers to. Raw vegetable juices, with raw carrots as the main ingredient, coupled with a customized vegan diet, as a replacement for the meat and dairy centered "Western" diet, has cured many, many thousands of people of cancer.

I might add that carrot juice is the main ingredient in the vegetable juice that serves at the heart of the "Raw Food Diet".

Question #4: How many Nobel Prize discoveries (and when were they awarded) did Dr. Johanna Budwig use to help her develop the Flaxseed Oil (omega 3) / Cottage Cheese (sulphur proteins) cancer treatment?

"Dr Otto Warburg, twice Nobel laureate was able to prove that cancer cannot grow in an high oxygen environment. He states: ‘Cancer, above all diseases, has countless secondary causes, but there is only one prime cause: the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of body cells by anaerobic respiration’. In other words, lack of oxygen. His research revealed that when a cell is denied 60% of its normal requirement of oxygen, it switches to a fermentation mechanism and grows out of control."http://www.internethealthlibrary.com...genTherapy.htm

Note that both of these Nobel Prizes were awarded in the 1930s. Dr. Budwig developed a diet to combine these two discoveries into one simple treatment plan - flaxseed oil and cottage cheese. Her treatment has cured untold thousands of cancer patients.

Question #5: It is absurd to think that a person can be cured of cancer simply by changing their diet. Only professionals can cure cancer. True or false?

Answer:I quote from alternative medicine expert Walter Last:

"To show how simple natural methods can be very effective in overcoming advanced cancer, I like to mention an example from the book The Food and Health of Western Man by Dr J. L. Mount. In five reported cases of bowel cancer, surgery revealed that metastases had already spread all over the body. Therefore, these patients were just closed up again and sent home to die. But instead of doing that, independently of each other, these five changed their diets and from then on ate only homegrown organically raised food. When they finally did die 21 to 30 years later, no traces of cancer could be found in post-mortem examinations. Such cures without medical intervention are regarded as 'spontaneous remissions'."http://www.mrbean.net.au/~wlast/cancerintroduction.html

The vast majority of cancer patients who go into "spontaneous remission" made massive changes in their diet after being diagnosed with cancer.

"A study was done on 200 cancer patients who had experienced "spontaneous remission." Doctors call these remissions "miracles." They're NOT miracles. Here's how they did it. Eighty seven percent of them fundamentally changed their diets - mostly to vegetarian. All of the 200 made changes in their lives including nutritional supplementation and detoxification techniques. What this and other studies are telling us is that cancer can be cured by fundamentally changing the chemistry that created it."
Raymond Francis (http://www.aidsinfobbs.org/articles/quilty/q02/732)

Here is another interesting quote:

"A study of four hundred cancer cases that went into spontaneous remission revealed cures which had little in common. Some people drank grape juice or swallowed massive doses of Vitamin C; others prayed, took herbal remedies, or simply cheered themselves on. These very diverse patients did have one thing in common, though. At a certain point in their disease, they suddenly knew, with complete certainty, that they were going to get better, as if the disease were merely a mirage, and the patient suddenly passed beyond it into a space where fear and despair and all sickness were nonexistent."http://www.paksearch.com/globe/1999/April/HIGHER.html

While it is true that many people go into spontaneous remission by dramatically changing their diet and attitude, imagine what would happen if newly diagnosed cancer patients were told:

1) What foods contained the most cancer-killing nutrients,
2) What foods contained the best nutrients to build the immune system,
3) What foods feed cancer cells and thus cause the cancer to grow faster (these are foods to avoid),
4) The best supplements to kill cancer cells and build the immunity system, and they were told
5) What things in a person's life can damage a natural treatment plan (e.g. chlorine in tap water)?

For example, changing to a vegan diet would not necessarily cure cancer, but going on a selective vegan diet and eating only the vegetables and fruits known to contain large amounts of cancer killing nutrients, and avoiding foods that feed the cancer, and avoiding foods that interfere with the effectiveness of the cancer-fighting foods, would yield a much higher cure rate than any orthodox treatment, even better than Vitamin C therapy. But alternative medicine can do much better than even this selective vegan protocol.

I really feel like in this case, it is a mistake to mess about with the hormone levels until you know better the root cause. First of all, such interventions are usually unsuccessful with supplements and I don't want to see you waste your money. No supplement will be able to compensate for an estrogen secreting tumor. Calcium d glucarate and DIM are great for estrogen dominance but your results seem to go beyond that.

And more importantly, you don't want to make it harder to find the root cause when you are able to go for treatment. What if the doctor doesn't take it seriously because it's just slightly elevated? I think you have results now that will get someone's attention and get you the help you deserve.

Go see a doctor at Planned Parenthood. They have a sliding scale and a folder full of options for limited incomes. You can pay cash so there is no insurance record.

My 6 year-old laptop died suddenly a couple of days ago and I've not been able to get online. I am online now for a few minutes, on a borrowed connection. I won't be back online for a little while, I expect.

I really feel like in this case, it is a mistake to mess about with the hormone levels until you know better the root cause. First of all, such interventions are usually unsuccessful with supplements and I don't want to see you waste your money. No supplement will be able to compensate for an estrogen secreting tumor. Calcium d glucarate and DIM are great for estrogen dominance but your results seem to go beyond that.
And more importantly, you don't want to make it harder to find the root cause when you are able to go for treatment. What if the doctor doesn't take it seriously because it's just slightly elevated? I think you have results now that will get someone's attention and get you the help you deserve.
Go see a doctor at Planned Parenthood. They have a sliding scale and a folder full of options for limited incomes. You can pay cash so there is no insurance record.
Your life is the most important thing.
Ema

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Thank you, Ema!

My computer hard disk died a couple of days ago and I haven't accessed PhoenixRising since, so I have just now caught up with my thread!

I had not considered PP up to now because I had been told last year (in casual conversation) that they had closed their office in my region of the state, but I have just looked it up on their website tonight and it seems they do have a location here - it's at a different address than before.
Would the benefit of going to PP be mainly just to see an MD and show her/him my hormone test results and ask in a general sense what I should do about them? On the national website's webpage for my local clinic, under "women's health care", it says that (along with things I wouldn't need, like treatment for urinary tract infections and prescriptions for birth control), they can basically give a manual breast and pelvic exam, do a pap smear, and provide a referral to go elsewhere to get mammograms. It would be good to get a Pap smear (I have not had one in 2 years), but I expect that the PP doctor would tell me that the hormone and CA-125 results indicate that I should also go to a doctor who can order a pelvic sonogram/CT scan and a mammogram, and I wouldn't be any further along in my knowledge about whether I have breast, ovarian, or endometrial cancer. Even if the Pap smear came back positive for something, surely they couldn't treat that through PP, and I'd still not have any medical coverage, but the coverage exclusion time would be extended to April because I had checked into it now instead of waiting until January to get checked. (I'm not arguing against the good sense of getting checked now, just concerned about the repercussions.)
Would they definitely let someone schedule an appointment and subsequently get her Pap smear sample checked by an outside lab without first providing the patient's name, address, SSN? I think that they do STD testing anonymously, but I'm not sure about other kinds of testing. The opthalmologist I arranged to pay cash to at the start of the year required my SSN - I had left that line blank on their new-patient form, but the receptionist flagged me down before I went into the consultation and said it was necessary for her to have it before I received treatment. Even if I could have an anonymous Pap smear, down the road, I don't want to be faced with a question on an insurance form like "Did you see any medical professional about anything in the last 12 months?" because I wouldn't be able to swear that I hadn't, if I had done so.

I've been lost without my computer and have not moved forward on anything for the last couple of days, but I need to get organized and get my mind focused on these things. I am trying to find my original installation disk (Vista) because I think it has a recovery program on there which might be able to repair the hard disk via the dvd drive. I may be absent from the forum for a couple more days, but I'll return!

My computer hard disk died a couple of days ago and I haven't accessed PhoenixRising since, so I have just now caught up with my thread!

I had not considered PP up to now because I had been told last year (in casual conversation) that they had closed their office in my region of the state, but I have just looked it up on their website tonight and it seems they do have a location here - it's at a different address than before.
Would the benefit of going to PP be mainly just to see an MD and show her/him my hormone test results and ask in a general sense what I should do about them? On the national website's webpage for my local clinic, under "women's health care", it says that (along with things I wouldn't need, like treatment for urinary tract infections and prescriptions for birth control), they can basically give a manual breast and pelvic exam, do a pap smear, and provide a referral to go elsewhere to get mammograms. It would be good to get a Pap smear (I have not had one in 2 years), but I expect that the PP doctor would tell me that the hormone and CA-125 results indicate that I should also go to a doctor who can order a pelvic sonogram/CT scan and a mammogram, and I wouldn't be any further along in my knowledge about whether I have breast, ovarian, or endometrial cancer. Even if the Pap smear came back positive for something, surely they couldn't treat that through PP, and I'd still not have any medical coverage, but the coverage exclusion time would be extended to April because I had checked into it now instead of waiting until January to get checked. (I'm not arguing against the good sense of getting checked now, just concerned about the repercussions.)
Would they definitely let someone schedule an appointment and subsequently get her Pap smear sample checked by an outside lab without first providing the patient's name, address, SSN? I think that they do STD testing anonymously, but I'm not sure about other kinds of testing. The opthalmologist I arranged to pay cash to at the start of the year required my SSN - I had left that line blank on their new-patient form, but the receptionist flagged me down before I went into the consultation and said it was necessary for her to have it before I received treatment. Even if I could have an anonymous Pap smear, down the road, I don't want to be faced with a question on an insurance form like "Did you see any medical professional about anything in the last 12 months?" because I wouldn't be able to swear that I hadn't, if I had done so.

I've been lost without my computer and have not moved forward on anything for the last couple of days, but I need to get organized and get my mind focused on these things. I am trying to find my original installation disk (Vista) because I think it has a recovery program on there which might be able to repair the hard disk via the dvd drive. I may be absent from the forum for a couple more days, but I'll return!

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You ask such hard questions and I wish I knew the answers!

I can't say how PP is handling things nowadays in a different state. When I worked at PP, our paperwork was pretty limited and people generally just filled in what they wanted. I never bugged anyone for more information but that is not to say that it wouldn't happen now in this climate.

I actually think that they might be in the best position to answer your questions. We had an ultrasound machine at our clinic and basically everything that your average gyno would do. The nurse practitioner was great; the doctor was competent. But again, all this would vary tremendously.

I don't know as much as I should about the Health Care Reform Act. I started looking for information on preexisting conditions the other day and got sidetracked before I got very far. I'm sure you have done your research though. It seems bizarre that you could be made to wait if you have a life threatening disease but nothing insurance companies do surprises me much anymore.

I just keep wondering how you will feel if it does turn out to be "something" and they tell you that "if only" you had come in 6 months earlier. There's no money that can make up for that. But I live in the real world too so I'll support you in whatever you decide.

I am just online for a moment now -- my old laptop couldn't be saved, so I've ordered a new laptop (a clearance one with Windows 7 on it, which is a big leap forward for me, since my last one I got in December of 2007!) and it'll arrive in about a week, then I'll be able to visit this site in my own time, and in privacy.

Before coming to PhoenixRising just now, I thought I'd do a quick internet search to see if anything has been decided for the millions of people in the 10 or 12 states that have decided not to add their childless low-income adults to the national healthcare provision.

The Healthcare.gov site says that for the childless low-income adults in the states that aren't extending the Medicare coverage, if they made under $11,500 per year as a single person (and I presume this number would be based on the 2012 tax return that was turned in April 2013), then they don't qualify for any subsidies on costs, although they'll be allowed to buy the insurance at full market price.

It is totally backwards to be most punitive to the folks who are the poorest. What kind of society does this? I am disgusted.

I had been hoping that the national government would step in at the last minute and cover these millions of people in those ten or twelve cruel states, but with only about a month to go before the healthcare exchanges go "live", I guess the way things are now is the way things will be, at least through the next 15+ months of the program.

Benevolently, they won't charge these poorest people the mandatory fine for not purchasing one of the health plans.

The federal website says that the only option for the people who fall into the "gap" is to go to community health centers for their basic medical needs.

I saw a few online newspaper articles saying that some of the states that aren't implementing this part of the program are just not answering the phones anymore at their state health department offices. Which is unprofessional and spiteful.

As for myself, I can't keep going without decent healthcare, and I am rationally worried about possibly having, or developing, a serious health situation that would require some pretty expensive and extensive treatment, and I can't magically make last year's tax return show over $11,500 in income, so my only option is to move to another state, even though it's not going to be straightforward or affordable.

I don't cry much, but after reading those articles and websites just now, and realizing that nothing will come through at the last minute from the national government, I burst out crying.

After all the horrible arguments, massive time wasted, and political capital spent by the government, only for us to finally have a weak, ineffectual national healthcare provision of some sort, for which I've been delaying for years getting proper healthcare until it comes into force, and then to find out that I happen to be in the only category of people who won't be covered by it!

I don't often get angry, but then I had a 2-minute wave of anger at the group of politicians who are punishing the weakest and most marginalized of their states' populations, to make a meaningless and empty "point" about their feelings towards the healthcare act, which is an official law and not an optional charitable endeavour. I am also angry that just because I don't have a child, I get treated differently (for my own personal health needs) in my state from low-income adults who do have a child -- it's not an accurate way to determine which adults are more valuable to society.

This is what I got for my details - single, middle-aged, no kids, no income, etc.:

"If your state does not expand Medicaid

You will not be eligible for subsidies in the exchanges because your income is below 100% of the federal poverty level.

Unsubsidized annual health insurance premium in 2014:
$4,358Amount you pay for the premium: $4,358 per year
You could receive a government tax credit subsidy of up to:
$0"

Edit: Last night I forgot to copy and paste the paragraph that followed the above statement, but they said that the deductible amount I'd have to pay out of pocket before the insurance plan would kick in would be another $6,000 a year!

So they would expect me, on no income, to pay $10,000 in one year towards medical expenses before getting any insurance coverage.

Why are the news channels not talking about this? I know that the poorest people do not have much power, collective voice, or energetic wherewithal to be up in arms about this, but this state of affairs is just wrong!

Then I logged on here and read Jody Smith's powerful essay which is currently featured on the site, and I feel so much sympathy with her views. My situation is different to hers, of course, but there are a few similarities. Seeing how things really are (former colleagues and friends abandoning you, no social safety net, people misunderstanding and blaming you, finding yourself in some embarrassing positions, seeing your world and sphere of influence shrink, becoming marginalized in society, whilst losing your energies, abilities, and prospects in the prime of life) is depressing, but the experience has helped me have more concern and empathy for others, and more empathy and admiration for folks throughout history as well. So many people are in dreadful, desperate situations, both halfway across the world and in our own towns, under our noses. The medium-term future does not feel safe for the entire planet, what with the population crisis, food shortages, rising sea levels, species extinction, Orwellian surveillance machine that now engulfs us and has our present, future, and past in a stranglehold, huge national debts and increasing unemployment, etc. It's amazing our massive and complex societies even function at all, and in retrospect I feel so lucky for all the opportunities and blessings in life that I've had, and for so many that I still have.

The good news (yes, there is some, if any brave soul is still reading, ha ha!) is that I'm feeling a little bit more energy now, just in the last week. I think it's due to the foundational supplements that I've been taking (and slowly increasing) in the last few weeks, like a much larger amount of Vit. D, all the Bs, all the minerals, etc. etc. Also, I have been taking 1 capsule daily of ashwagandha for about a week and I think it has been very good for me - my body temp seems to be a bit higher, for one thing. For the first time ever, I've taken melatonin - one-tenth of 1 milligram of melatonin on 3 nights this week - and it zonks me out immediately! (Which is great, but then I wake up about 4 hours later and can't get back to sleep for an hour or two after that. But between the ashwagandha and melatonin, I've been sleeping more than before, and getting more sleep during the wee hours, which is key. Speaking of which, I must get going! Take care, everybody.)

In 2014, individuals under age 65 (including parents and adults without dependent children) with incomes below 133% of the FPL ($14,500 for an individual in 2011) will become eligible for Medicaid in every state. This change ends the longstanding coverage gap for low-income adults. States can choose to expand eligibility for adults prior to 2014, and several states have already done so.

I thought that it was going to be mandatory for states to provide coverage from 2014,

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That is a common belief, but it's not accurate for ALL states.

Maybe the reason the rest of the country isn't appalled by this situation that I (and millions of other low income adults who do not have children) am in is that they don't understand what the new healthcare program is really going to be about.

I hope there is an uproar about this one day, because it is not fair or decent to do this only to childless poor people in certain states, no matter how it's portrayed.

Of course, this disagreement already went to the Supreme Court a year or two ago, so it WAS indeed taken seriously by people in the know, it's just that the Supreme Court ruled that the states do have a right to refuse the national standardized coverage to these poor people. Maybe it's legal, but it's so UNETHICAL.

The information has been around for several months now, but people aren't really thinking about it. Here is some information by respected news sources:

A capitalist one While it might be alright as an economic model, it's a really stupid basis for a society.

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It's nothing to do with the notion of capitalism that the states have been told by the Supreme Court that they don't have to follow the national law on this. Capitalism has nothing to do with the unintentional loophole in the law that allows the crueller, more thick-headed states to wriggle out of covering the very poorest in society in order to make a political point.

And capitalism has nothing to do with the fact that by refusing the federal money for this program (because the national government is going to pay the states for it!), those states are cutting their nose off to spite their face, because they are losing BILLIONS of federal dollars for their states' healthcare industries, which means that their states' economies are going to be much worse off than otherwise. It's just economically stupid, it's not capitalism.

Is there a nearby state you could move to which has better policies? Especially if there's somewhere that you've got some friends or family members nearby?

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No. If I did, I would be doing that, and not sitting here wondering what I'm going to do!

I have very few family members, and even the far-flung second cousins or whatever have small residences, live in very rural areas, have little in common with me, and mostly live in the Medicare opt-out states. Friend-wise, as I lived many years overseas and am middle-aged, I don't have friends in the US whom I would feel comfortable asking if I could live with them.

Anyway, I am not sure what the state residency rules are going to be for this healthcare program, since I would expect that the states which are following the national law are going to have to brace themselves against a portion of the millions of childless poor people who won't be covered in their own states and will be thinking of how they can finagle their way into some health coverage by glomming on to other states.

At the moment, the one state that is already operating a blanket healthcare program, Massachusetts (the univeral healthcare coverage which they call Romneycare since Mitt Romney set it up when he was Republican Governor there), requires that you present either a Massachusetts-based mortgage or lease document, and be receiving at least one fixed utility bill (not cell phone) in your name. Therefore, it's not the sort of program one can quality for just by momentarily staying with other people in another state. (I'm not sure if those rules will change after January 2014, but their website does not indicate that they will.)

I don't own a car and I live in a place where there is no public transport like train lines etc. (I'm even about an hour and a half from the nearest airport!), so it's not a simple notion to pick up and go hundreds of miles to move somewhere new that I have no knowledge of, find an apartment, pay security deposit and 2 months' rent in cash, etc. I did that on my own several times in my past (when I was well), and I know how hard it is. I wouldn't be able to afford it now.

I don't want to live where I live - it's not like I'm fighting to stay put. But I had no choice but to come here when my life contracted down to the bare necessities, and this situation is the only one I've got.

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My blood is actually boiling at the moment (over the whole issue), and I need to make sure that I am not sounding whiny, self-pitying, or anything like that -- that's not the tone in which I am thinking these words in my head!! So I hope that isn't how it "reads" on the screen here.

I am not wallowing in "woe is me", I am angry and frustrated for an entire group of people, and I am insulted on behalf of the spirit of our country which is not supposed to promote divisive unfairness against a vulnerable minority.

In looking up articles last night about the states that are opting out of the Medicaid part of the Obamacare coverage, I found a letter to the editor in a medium-sized city written by a group of many of that region's faith leaders -- head rabbi, head priest, head minister, etc. -- pleading with their state government to accept the Medicaid part of the new healthcare law, because the victims of the refusal were going to be the region's poorest people and not the opposition party's lawmakers in Washington DC.

I hope the unexpected consequences (unexpected from these governors' point of view, anyway) of these decisions come to haunt them, and compel positive changes to happen in our society, and force decent-hearted voters to see what's really going on.

My blood is actually boiling at the moment (over the whole issue), and I need to make sure that I am not sounding whiny, self-pitying, or anything like that -- that's not the tone in which I am thinking these words in my head!! So I hope that isn't how it "reads" on the screen here.

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Not at all. It is outrageous and I am angry for you.

I am not wallowing in "woe is me", I am angry and frustrated for an entire group of people, and I am insulted on behalf of the spirit of our country which is not supposed to promote divisive unfairness against a vulnerable minority.

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I believe angry, frustrated and insulted is the proper response to this situation of any human with a conscience.

In looking up articles last night about the states that are opting out of the Medicaid part of the Obamacare coverage, I found a letter to the editor in a medium-sized city written by a group of many of that region's faith leaders -- head rabbi, head priest, head minister, etc. -- pleading with their state government to accept the Medicaid part of the new healthcare law, because the victims of the refusal were going to be the region's poorest people and not the opposition party's lawmakers in Washington DC.

I hope the unexpected consequences (unexpected from these governors' point of view, anyway) of these decisions come to haunt them, and compel positive changes to happen in our society, and force decent-hearted voters to see what's really going on.

"I have to confess that I never thought I would see the day when the highest elected official of one of our most populous states would stand before those who look to him for leadership and announce that a ruling by the highest court of the land just doesn’t count simply because the governor doesn’t agree with what the majority of Justices had to say."

"Once the citizens of these states get wise to how a Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal are allowing all that federal money (including the federal tax dollars paid by Texans and Louisianans) to go to neighboring states while they get nothing, I think these governors are going to get a little lesson in how politics really work. And that will be a fun day."

"I have to confess that I never thought I would see the day when the highest elected official of one of our most populous states would stand before those who look to him for leadership and announce that a ruling by the highest court of the land just doesn’t count simply because the governor doesn’t agree with what the majority of Justices had to say."

"Once the citizens of these states get wise to how a Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal are allowing all that federal money (including the federal tax dollars paid by Texans and Louisianans) to go to neighboring states while they get nothing, I think these governors are going to get a little lesson in how politics really work. And that will be a fun day."

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Although I feel that in only these few weeks away, I've forgotten a lot of the information that I had learned here over the summer -- seriously, what has happened to my memory. Gosh.

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While I have been replacing my dead computer (the new one took 2 weeks to get here from China) and trying to set up the new one (it has had several major problems that I am unfamiliar with, including critical partition and hard drive malfunctions - due to nothing that I did to it -, and in order to solve them I had to take it back to a "factory restore" twice, losing all my days spent in the meantime in setting it up (twice) -- I've spent literally weeks on computer help forums and the Microsoft support and manufacturer's support websites -- ugh, this computer-techie stuff is NOT my forte! and I never had such problems with breaking in a new computer before -- and just trying to collect and/or recreate my files and documents and routines that died when my old laptop's hard drive gave up the ghost - it was startling to experience just how much of my life is arranged and lived via my computer -- it's amazing how *adrift* and disorganized I've been in the last 8 weeks without having a functioning, all-set-up computer - of course, this has given me an insight into just how much brain fog I have these days, slowly ploughing away at stuff that surely wouldn't have taken me SO long to do in past years.... it's still not over - I've got a number of things left to do to get the smaller "Event Viewer" errors and the final Bluebell-esque document/file/software programs' organization/set-up entirely ironed out, but I just decided today to take a break from the techie stuff and do other things on the internet, like visiting Phoenix Rising!),
it's been a rocky period in a couple of other aspects of my life, too, but I don't want to complain excessively and be just TOO boring!

I will return in a few days when my brain will be better able to summarize relevant (i.e., about my health) info in a somewhat more succinct fashion.